CH&PA not repossessing unoccupied house lots – Saul

The Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA) is not making moves to repossess unoccupied house lots; rather it is now working with the owners to have those lots occupied. This is according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the CH&PA, Lelon Saul.
“We have been encouraging people to occupy lands and we are working with them to find out what challenges they have and to see what we can assist so that people can move onto the lands that they were allocated. We have not repossessed any lands from individuals where a person has been awarded an individual plot. We have not done that,” Saul said.
Minister with the responsibility for housing, Valarie Patterson-Adams, has indicated that Government would be moving to repossess unoccupied lots so as to ensure a greater occupancy rate.
However, this move caused some amount of disagreement between the landowners and the CH&PA, since the owners are of the view that once they have possession of a title, then the Government cannot mandate them to build.
According to the agreement, the landowners have to begin construction on their plots as the earliest time possible and could only change ownership after 10 years.
According to Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan, a lot of house lots allocated since 2000 remain unoccupied in several schemes across the country. He said the trend was worrying and alarming, as he explained that billions of dollars were expended to prepare the schemes for occupancy, but progress has been slow over the last decade.
Minister Bulkan revealed that between 2000 and 2015, from an approximate total of 66,000 house lots allocated, some 28,000 or 40 per cent remain unoccupied. “It makes no sense investing these huge sums of money for a rate of occupancy that is as low as 20 per cent,” the Minister said previously.
The Minister reported that during 2011 and 2015, some 38 new schemes were developed boasting a total of 20,000 house lots but to date, 80 per cent of those lots remain unoccupied. A total $12.8 billion was pumped into their development and $16 billion is now required to complete infrastructure works.
Besides this, from a total of 4927 interviews conducted in 2017, the CH&PA only issued 1131 house lots, with Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) accounting for the majority of 3122 interviews and 513 allocations.